ISTANBUL: The death penalty is abolished, Kurds have been given the rights to broadcast in their language, and Turkey is proud of this homework done for full membership of the European Union.

But Turkey might have another to-do list on its hands after the European Union (EU) meeting in Copenhagen in December when Turkey’s claim to membership will be discussed. Turkey is a changed nation, though questions remain whether it has changed enough.

“The 28th Star” ran a headline in the Hurriyet, Turkey’s biggest daily, meaning that Turkey will be the 28th member of the EU. Chief editor Ertugrul Ozkok ran his column under a headline in Kurdish, ‘Biji Turkiye’ (Long Live Turkey). An unprecedented kind of headline, to say the least.

“The Turkish parliament has made a mental revolution,” Ozkok says. “We have come from the fear of pronouncing the word ‘Kurd’ to ending up with granting freedom for education and broadcast in Kurdish language.”

A Kurdish minority of an estimated 15 million has for years struggled for fundamental rights within Turkey. Turkey’s preparation for the EU has now changed their lives.

It also saved the life of Abdullah Ocalan, former leader of the separatist PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party). Ocalan was handed over to Turkish security by the Kenyan government in 1999 after he was extradited from Syria and failed to get asylum in Europe.

Ocalan was tried and immediately sentenced to death by a state security court. But the execution order was suspended while the European human rights court heard objections about unfair trial. With abolition of the death sentence, Ocalan and about 60 others are saved.

The “EU laws package” as the media calls the reforms now passed by parliament include freedom of education and broadcast in non-Turkish languages, freedom to criticise the state and its institutions, easing of restrictions on foreign non-governmental organisations, greater freedom for non-Muslim minority groups, and tougher measures against illegal migration through Turkey.

In a country where denial of another ethnicity had become the cornerstone of statehood, analysts call the recent reforms groundbreaking.

The reforms had the backing of the majority in parliament and have the backing of the majority of the people, opinion polls indicate. But it is still uncertain whether they will open the doors to the EU.

Elmar Broek, chair of the foreign relations committee of the European Parliament is reported to have said that “Turkey is still far from meeting the Copenhagen political criteria.”

Broek told the BBC in remarks widely quoted in the Turkish media: “Full democracy and supremacy of law is yet to be established. The army’s political hegemony and the independence of the judiciary are still problematic.”

Local reports have referred to remarks by EU officials suggesting that the Turkish government was arousing unrealistic expectations among the Turkish people.

Some diplomats say that tensions between Turkey and the EU are set to rise later this year when the candidacy of Cyprus for EU membership is discussed. Cyprus, about 100 miles south of Turkey in the Mediterranean has been divided between the Turkish north and the Greek south since 1974 when Turkish forces invaded the island following a coup against the government of Archbishop Makarios II.

Turkey still controls 36 per cent of Cyprus in defiance of United Nations resolutions. No other nation recognizes the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

The EU has meanwhile begun talks for accession of the Cyprus Republic in the south which it sees as the legitimate government for the whole island. Turkey says it will annex northern Cyprus, if Cyprus is accepted into the EU ahead of Turkey.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.